The coach behind Courtside IQ
WHO IS JADEN?
Before I tell you who I am, I think it’s best I tell you who I was.
I started playing basketball at five. By ten, I was taking it seriously. I’d fallen in love with the game, and I was willing to put the work in.
Early mornings, extra training, hours on court. Working hard was never the problem.
Then the game would start.
I struggled with confidence. In bigger competitions, or with a crowd watching, I’d freeze. The player I was in training wasn’t the player people saw in games.
I represented South East England twice, but I remember scoring just four points across those two years of tournaments. I knew I was capable of more. I just couldn’t seem to show it.
At the time, I didn’t really understand what I needed. Looking back, I would have loved someone to talk to about what was going through my head. Someone I could be honest with about feeling scared to play, without feeling embarrassed.
I kept thinking that if I trained harder, it would eventually click. But more training wasn’t answering all the questions I had.
I needed help joining it all together.
It wasn’t only confidence. I wasn’t always spending my time on the things that would help me most. I needed more practice making decisions against another player: one-on-one, two-on-two, situations that actually felt like a game.
I enjoyed watching film and trying to understand basketball in my own time. But I would have benefited from someone going through it with me, pointing things out, asking questions and helping me decide what to work on next.
We had team sessions, but once we left the court, we were largely left to figure the rest out ourselves. How do I respond to a bad game? What should I focus on this week? Am I actually following through on what I said I’d do?
Those things matter. The way you practise, the way you understand the game and the confidence you take onto the court all connect.
Then I became a coach.
I went on to start my own basketball academy and ran it for three years. Coaching young players, I started recognising things I’d experienced myself.
I’d see a player with so much skill struggle to show it in a game. Then another player, who might look less polished in training, would step onto the court with confidence and make things happen.
That stayed with me. What you see in a drill doesn’t always tell you how a player will feel or perform when the game starts.
It made me think about the support I’d wanted at their age, and how I could offer it to someone else.
That’s why I started Courtside IQ.
I want to be someone a young player can talk to, learn with and rely on to keep them accountable.
We might go through film together, talk about something they’re finding difficult or work out how to make better use of their time between team sessions. Then we come back to it and see how it’s going.
I know what it feels like to care so much about basketball and still feel stuck. I want young players to have someone in their corner while they work through that.
That’s the person I wish I’d had.
- Enhanced DBS checked
- Level 2 qualified basketball coach
Schools I’ve worked in
Alongside running my academy, my coaching experience includes working with children at:
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